31. Over Two-Thirds of Soviet Males Born in 1923 Did Not Survive WWII
Soviet babies born in 1923 had a dismal future ahead of them. They emerged into an impoverished country that had recently endured almost four years of WWI, followed by three more years of the even bloodier Russian Civil War. While millions died from war, millions more died from starvation and the epidemics attendant upon war. In a society that lacked modern sanitation, adequate healthcare, or basic immunization, the rates of infant and childhood mortality were shockingly high. The survivors of the 1923 cohort were just 9, when the USSR faced another major famine in 1932. They were 14 when Stalin’s Great Terror began in 1937, and 18 when the Nazis invaded in 1941 – just in time for conscription into the Red Army.
Caught off guard by the massive German invasion, the Soviets barely hung on by the skin of their teeth in 1941, and there was hardly any time to adequately train new conscripts. So the young men of 1923 served as cannon fodder, and were rushed to the front with weapons they barely knew how to use. Understandably, their casualty rates were horrific. All in all, about 3,400,000 male babies were born in the USSR in 1923. By the time WWII had ended, only 1,100,000 survivors remained: a mortality rate of 68%.